Inspiration from Alex Danson MBE at Sports Awards Evening

24th April 2017

We held our third Sports Awards Evening on Thursday 20 April with a very special guest speaker – Olympic gold medalist Alex Danson MBE.

It was a fabulous event and a great way of recognising and rewarding our girls for their amazing achievements across a whole range of sporting activities, and it was made extra special due to the inspirational guest speaker, Alex Danson. Alex became instantly recognisable after the Rio Olympics in 2016 at which, along with her teammates, she secured a gold medal for Team GB in women’s field hockey.

The afternoon began when our special guest arrived at school, met staff and spent some time with the girls. Junior girls from Year 5 lined up to ask Alex lots of questions and tell her all about the planned Hockey tour to Holland, which she thought sounded really exciting. Alex signed autographs for the girls before going on to coach some of our Senior School girls and show them her world famous reverse stick hit. What a fantastic experience for our girls – they loved meeting Alex and enjoyed the privilege of training with her here at school.

The ceremony itself was brilliant. Alex delivered a truly inspiring speech about the dedication and practice it takes to become a world champion, and the importance of teamwork and how everybody matters in securing a victory.

She then presented an array of awards to a procession of girls from all sporting disciplines. It really was a wonderful celebratory evening which Alex enjoyed as much as we did. The girls evidently loved to see all of the photographs and videos of themselves at their various sporting events – their giggling was contagious and showed just how much fun they had been having.

Sport at NGHS is a really big deal for the school, and something at which we do really well, having been shortlisted for the Nottinghamshire Sporting School of the Year for five years in a row, and placed in the top three for three of those years. And the future promises to be even more exciting as our facilities are due to expand – just take a look at the plans at this link – you’ll see what we mean.